June 19, 2010

Break-in at Bush's South Baltimore rowhouse

And an intense search is now for the bikes owned by former President Bush's daughter and her husband that includes officers from the Southern District and detectives assigned to the Regional Auto Theft Task Force.

Police confirmed today that cops responded to the Charles Street rowhouse for a burglar alarm but didn't find anything amiss. The alarm company called the Hager's, who were out of town, and they asked a neighbor to check. That's when they found the bicycles missing from a rear garage. Police then noticed two small pry marks on a back garage door.

Police described one bicycle as a men's black and red Trek Fuel-style worth $2,500 and a female blue Trek worth $1,000. Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said nothing else was taken and the burglars did not get into the rowhouse.

The couple had Secret Service protection when the initially moved to the neighborhood. But Guglielmi said the couple, who are now married, no longer have that protection.

Why is this news? My mountain bike was stolen two weeks ago from my home in Canton and the cops could care less....yet "officers from the Southern District and detectives assigned to the Regional Auto Theft Task Force" are looking into this case. Give me a break!

I live in the City of Riverside, California, where my wife's Mercedes SLS AMG was stolen from our home's driveway earlier this year. I couldn't get the local police department to come to our home to even take a report, much less to take fingerprints or conduct any form of investigation. The best they could offer in response to my telephone call was "You can come by the downtown station and file a written complaint if you want."

My old house in Federal Hill was broken into this past Winter. The guy had about $8000 worth of laptops, cameras, etc. Luckily a neighbor saw it and called it in.

The South Baltimore police were there within minutes and caught the guy riding away on one of my room mate's bikes. They had CSI come in to do fingerprints, they brought me down to the station to make a formal report.

I couldn't be happier with the process and SBPD. Then again, without the neighbor, it would have probably been significantly different.

Intense search. If her name wasn't Bush, the Police Officers wouldn't give a wooden nickel worth of care.

I've never seen them worry about a car break-in or bike theft other than the "bother" of them filling out a police report. If they started catching these crooks at that stage, maybe it wouldn't progress to armed robbery and murder.

Intense search? For bikes? I was an eyewitness to a brutal mugging across the street from my house. When the victims called the police, the officer,(I swear I am not making this up) said, "We probably wont catch these guys, it will just be a waste of time to file out a report". Of course the victims names were not Bush either.

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About Peter Hermann

Peter Hermann started covering news for The Baltimore Sun in 1990, first in Anne Arundel County and, starting in 1994, reporting on the Baltimore Police Department. In 2001, he was assigned to Jerusalem as the Baltimore Sun's Middle East correspondent. He returned in 2005 as an assistant city editor overseeing crime coverage. In 2008, Peter returned to the beat as a daily reporter and blogger. A recent BBC report featured him in a segment on the harsh realities of covering crime in Baltimore.

Coverage will focus on crime trends, problems in neighborhoods in the city and elsewhere, profiles of victims and police officers and try to offer readers a fresh perspective on one of the most vexing issues facing Baltimore and its future.

Contributing to this blog is Justin Fenton, who joined The Sun in 2005 and has covered the Baltimore City Police Department and the criminal justice system since 2008. His work includes an investigation into Cal Ripken Jr.’s minor league baseball stadium deal with his hometown of Aberdeen, a three-part series chronicling a ruthless con woman, coverage of the killing of five Amish children at a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., and a job swap with a British crime reporter to explore differences in crime-fighting.
A special report looking into how city police handle rape cases led to sweeping reforms that changed the way sexual assaults are investigated in Baltimore. He was recognized as the best reporter in Baltimore by the City Paper in 2010 and by Baltimore Magazine in 2011.